We all know the story. It’s well into 2014, Christmas is over and done with and you want to book the annual family holiday. Maybe you do a bit of Googling on your tablet one evening to get ideas for destinations; you might even get inspiration from a friend’s Facebook photos. Over the next couple of weeks you continue researching holidays on your phone during the morning commute, on your desktop computer at work and then switch to your tablet in bed. You might call the travel company to get more details, research more options and then pick up the phone to make sure you have everything correct before making that final booking.
We all know this is how the customer journey looks, as it’s how we shop ourselves. But, as a marketer, are you able to track customers once they move from online to offline? We believe many marketers are ‘flying blind’ when it comes to understanding the role the phone call plays in the customer journey.
Talking matters
As offline channels typically sit beyond the reach of online tracking and analytics, the phone is often forgotten as an important marketing tool. Yet, we know customers want to talk. Our own research revealed that one in three online shoppers say they prefer to talk to someone on the phone before committing to a purchase. When you consider that we spend over £528m online each week, this means that £186m of sales rely on a phone call every week. These figures rise to 41% for those aged over 55, an important consideration when two thirds of retail spending growth over the next ten years is expected to come from this age group. So by not offering customers this channel of communication, marketers could be cutting out a valuable sales channel.
A symbol of trust
Our research also shows that online businesses that make it difficult for consumers to call them on the phone are potentially compromising their brand. Over half of UK customers are reassured by seeing a phone number on a website as it reassures them that there’s a real person at the other end. Over half also said they’re more likely to return to a retailer to buy again if they know they can talk to them on the phone.
On the other side of the coin, nearly half of consumers say the main motivation for brands not having a phone number was that it made companies’ own lives easier, whilst a third said it was about generating more profit.
Silos
Despite this feedback from consumers, we’ve found that marketers rarely put systems and processes in place to track and analyse the phone calls they are receiving. Our research revealed that 82% of marketers say it’s important to link online marketing to offline sales but more than half (52%) don’t have a complete view of how their on and offline marketing activity is driving phone sales.
When marketers leave the call tracking to other departments, there’s no way of making that logical link between spend on ads and bottom line phone sales.
Going offline means that the consumer has disappeared off the grid. For marketers to generate the complete picture of their customers’ journeys, they need to analyse all aspects of the purchase journey, not simply those that can be tracked online. With this holistic approach, marketers can be sure they know exactly how sales happen and that they don’t loose track of customers.
By Bhavesh Vaghela, Chief Marketing Officer at ResponseTap.
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